Ethereum : Hypothetical scenario: Pure PoS consensus deploys as planned. Within a few months, giant staking pools emerge. Within a few years, 2 superpools hold > 90% of the ETH in existence. An accumulation race begins between these 2 factions, each trying to 51% the chain.

Ethereum : Hypothetical scenario: Pure PoS consensus deploys as planned. Within a few months, giant staking pools emerge. Within a few years, 2 superpools hold > 90% of the ETH in existence. An accumulation race begins between these 2 factions, each trying to 51% the chain.

December 8, 2018, 5:15 am4.7k Views

Ethereum update: Hypothetical scenario: Pure PoS consensus deploys as planned. Within a few months, giant staking pools emerge. Within a few years, 2 superpools hold > 90% of the ETH in existence. An accumulation race begins between these 2 factions, each trying to 51% the chain.

If you can 51% the chain with a staking superpool, then can’t you claim the defeated side’s 49% for yourself?

The subtext of this scenario is whether PoS has severe economic / political consequences to whichever network it serves. I’m interested in all your views.

Aren’t people going to rapaciously try to take over the network in large groups?

There seems to be a strong incentive to do this, and very little disincentive.

What are the safeguards against such a scenario?

Off top, I suppose the best one is that if such an attack ever did take place, the ETH token would plummet in value and not be as valuable as it had been before the attack.

Another one might be that some kind of fork would occur?

Both of these safeguards are hardly ideal if an entire distributed world computing network is to be built around Ethereum.

Can anybody see a different outcome emerging after the deployment of PoS?

(if you are wondering, I’m not a ‘hater’. I think Ethereum is monumental and Vitalik is a certified genius – I’m concerned about this outcome precisely because I see all these great projects being worked on seriously)

About Ethereum

Ethereum is a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts: applications that run exactly as programmed without any possibility of downtime, censorship, fraud or third-party interference.Author: ElGuapissimoScore: 2
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